heroicallyadv.

1579 A. Munday Mirrour Mutabilitie To Rdr. sig. CC Not as yet able to vaunt his Muse so Heroycally, as writers of longer libertie, who are dayly practised in the rules of Poetrie.

1595 E. Spenser Colin Clouts come Home Againe sig. C2^v Whose Muse..Doth like himselfe Heroically sound.

1600 E. Fairfax tr. T. Tasso Godfrey of Bulloigne sig. A2^v The heroically written Imitation of an Other, is nothing else, but the patterne and image of humane action.

1664 J. Dryden Rival Ladies Ded. sig. A3^v Some..if they were to Write in Blanck Verse, Sir, I ask your pardon, would think it Sounded more Heroically to write, Sir, I your pardon ask.

1712 S. Centlivre Perplex'd Lovers v. i. 44 Most Heroically spoken—Now let me tell you something; this haughty Speech has such an awkward Air, that it seems to be but just acquir'd.

1751 E. Haywood Hist. Betsy Thoughtless III. ix. 111 He could not, in spite of his ill humour, refrain laughing, on reading some expressions in this heroically learned epistle.

1853 E. K. Kane U.S. Grinnell Exped. (1856) xxx. 263 I wear an ear-ridge, a tiara, to speak heroically, of wolf-skin.

1868 Every Sat. 12 Sept. 326/1 ‘Will you give me an antedated receipt?’.. ‘Bring forth the bond’, he cried, heroically. ‘I'll sign if it were dated five hundred years back.’

1933 Hispanic Rev. 12 5 Mere particular facts that had to be treated heroically to form an epic poem.

1992 Independent (Nexis) 29 Mar. 25 ‘Felix Randal’ the farrier, heroically rhymed with God's ‘bright and battering sandal’, was really called Spencer.

1583 W. Rainolds Refut. Sundry Reprehensions 553 He addeth certain ordinarie wordes of course, concerning him self and his felowes, how heroically they haue alwaies gotten the victorie ouer vs, & our forefathers.

1590 Sir P. Sidney Covntesse of Pembrokes Arcadia ii. ix. f. 140 As if they had done traiterously, and not heroically in killing his tyrannicall Cosen.

1609 R. Gray Good Speed to Virginia sig. B4^v If an honourable death were set before a vertuous minde, it would chuse rather to die heroically, then liue opprobriously.

1693 J. Norris Pract. Disc. Divine Subj. III. 342 They represent it..as something Heroically Excellent, as the Top and Height of Christian Perfection.

1743 H. Walpole Let. 19 July in Lett. to H. Mann (1833) I. 300 I will bear this misfortune as heroically as I can.

1781 H. Cowley Belle's Stratagem i. i. 2 I heroically stay'd an hour with them, and dicover'd the virgins were all come to town with the hopes of leaving it wives.

1855 T. B. Macaulay Hist. Eng. IV. xx. 421 The Jacobites..represented him..as a martyr who had heroically laid down his life for the banished King and the persecuted Church.

1891 T. Hardy Group of Noble Dames i. 77 Among them all, he who had risked his own life most heroically was Mr. Willowes.

1938 E. Waugh Scoop ii. iv. 203 The wry smile of one heroically resisting an emotion of almost overwhelming repulsion.

1946 National Geographic Mag. July 117/1 The menfolk rush heroically to the defense and are soon belaboring the flitting visitor [sc. a bat] with sticks, brooms, and tennis rackets.

2003 J. Mullaney We'll be Back 214 Who else but Big Mo dived through a crowd of players to heroically head the ball into the net.

1735 Gentleman's Mag. Dec. 729/1 Once—heroically tipsy—I wisely tilted for the gipsy.

1763 Humourist 147 I made shift to stagger home thus heroically drunk.

1815 G. Daniel Mod. Dunciad (ed. 3) 21 There roars Reform, heroically drunk.

1897 R. H. Savage Mod. Corsair ii. 36 That young man..was studying the collection of hideous bronzes.., heroically useless cabinets, all the aftermath of the many service voyages of the wandering Drages.

1907 Idler Feb. 579/2 The bulldog..is a creature so heroically ugly that he is a joy to look upon.

1930 N.Y. Times 3 Oct. 30/2 Only the theatre can be so heroically stupid.

1989 I. C. Campbell Hist. Pacific Islands xi. 150 Both [missions] were heroically fruitless for some years.

2009 Atlantic Monthly Nov. 58/1 And then, suddenly, amid heroically overgrown lawns, you see a cluster of modern, colorful, and modestly sized homes.

1841 Med. Examiner 10 Apr. 230/1 He probably neither knew nor cared about the bladder which lay beyond the urethra he was treating so heroically, nor about the ureter, the kidney, the lung, which were destined successively to be destroyed by his pernicious drugs.

1883 J. M. Duncan Clin. Lect. Dis. Women (ed. 2) x. 88 She was the protégée of all the Ladies Bountiful in the neighbourhood, so that the doctors were afraid to treat her heroically.

1907 N.Y. Med. Jrnl. 12 Jan. 52/1 Such treatment, heroically followed, often will head off and subdue an advancing peritonitis.

1990 Washington Post (Nexis) 13 Mar. z12 We should not push for..taking a powerful drug with possibly harmful side effects for a minor condition that we could learn to live with or treat less heroically.